Automotive vehicle designers typically rely on wind tunnel tests for determining the aerodynamic characteristics and consequences of a vehicle design. A common approach is to place a prototype vehicle into a wind tunnel and conduct various tests, for example measuring drag and lift forces over the entire vehicle, or probing the flowfield using smoke injector probes. These tests require significant time, effort and expense. Since several design iterations are usually required before a final vehicle design is achieved, additional wind tunnel tests are needed, thus resulting in multiplication of test expense. Vehicle designers have thus looked for the day when computer related methods could be used to not only supplement wind tunnel tests, but to partially replace physical testing, to reduce vehicle development time and expense.
Heretofore, limitations on computer speed and algorithm accuracy have inhibited the development of a virtual wind tunnel, in which some, or all, of the aforementioned tests can be conducted via computer with a given vehicle design. However, with the advent of new and improved computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technology, which may for example incorporate the principles of lattice gas theory to predict fluid motion, a virtual wind tunnel is technically possible. A further need exists, nonetheless, for a method and system which utilizes available computer related technology to provide a user accessible virtual wind tunnel. Additionally, a method and system is needed to provide a comparison between test results from a physical wind tunnel and a virtual wind tunnel, and between alternate vehicle designs.